


onward bound

by zeprince



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-19 08:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2382206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeprince/pseuds/zeprince
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're a courier. You have a lot to carry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	onward bound

**Author's Note:**

> Drabble I cleaned up from my tumblr about Courier Six and wanderlust.

Goodsprings is your birthplace, your renaissance. But you know you need to leave.  
It is steady and it is safe, but you need more than that. They welcome you into this world, but they cannot make you their own. They do not try to. You make it clear from the very start you intend to move on.

You're on the road again before day breaks, moving past markers half-eaten by rust and war, bullet holes marking dead cars as if their corpses were part of the battle. 

Primm is hell, you’re sure of it. Primm is smoking and ungrateful. Primm is the closest to Vegas the NCR will ever get or deserve, you're going to make sure of that. You are quick to move through - to never look back - not to the Vicki and Vance casino, home to the infamous death car and the weapon that was used on their cross-country crime spree. You ask about the man who tried to kill you. All the answers do is kill more leads, driving you onward, across the desert landscape towards lights that grow farther before they can grow closer again.

Your feet ache and your eyes burn, hands clamped so tight around your 9mm that you forget how to put it down. You push onward, the weight of the places you'be been starting to become a burden. You are still a newborn. You are still only just learning to walk.

Nipton burns, and now, so do you.

Novac is bittersweet. You can see the Vegas skyline if you climb to the top of their concrete guardian, yearning and aching. War - and time - have worn down on Dinky's skin, his interior showing through, iron rods like bones of real dinosaurs. If you listen - if you really listen - you can hear Brahmin screaming. You can hear ghouls screaming. If you stick around for long enough, you'll hear the screams of an empty man with nothing to lose and a town with too much to hide. A man they call No-bark growls about the ghouls in the sky and you know; he is telling the truth.

Novac leaves you feeling heavier, and you push on, determined to find more weapons to clench in your fingers before you meet the man who sent you on this journey. 

Two towns - Nelson and Boulder City - one a graveyard, one a statement. It's hard to know which is which, sometimes. 

The lands surrounding Vegas are crop fields full of men without roots, people who bear no fruit and dry dust that you couldn't plant a damn thing in. You push onward, feet screaming in your steel-toed boots.

Jacobstown is safe and it is peaceful. You’d stay here, in these mountains, if you could. You can see the stars from here, unaffected by city skylines. But - your welcome is overstayed the minute you call this place your home. This is not your haven, and you know there are other lights to carry you home.

You push your aching corpse to the Vegas gates, feeling life creeping into your extremities and hope bubbling in your mouth. There's an ache in your heart when you see those lights, there always has been; they're calling you. They're taking you back.

You wander the strip at night because it’s the only time you can capture the magic you felt in Dinky’s mouth. You gaze up at the lights until it burns your eyes and now you see stars wherever you look. What’s not to love? What’s there to want more than this? 

Your feet ache, your soul aches, and you only find comfort when you set off again, when you find a new place to rest your head in anticipation of another departure.  
You’ll solidify your bones and turn yourself to ash if it means you can wander, means you can scan the distance for more lights, more points of being and more beacons guiding you onward. You were never meant to stay anywhere. You can feel the weight of that burden burning behind your armor every time you stop to rest.

You are a courier. you have a lot to carry.


End file.
